{"id":29797,"date":"2015-08-08T06:30:11","date_gmt":"2015-08-07T18:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=29797"},"modified":"2015-08-06T22:38:49","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T10:38:49","slug":"what-im-reading-right-now-the-art-of-war-by-sun-tzu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/08\/08\/what-im-reading-right-now-the-art-of-war-by-sun-tzu\/","title":{"rendered":"What I&#8217;m Reading Right Now: &#8220;The Art Of War&#8221; By Sun-tzu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/08\/08\/what-im-reading-right-now-the-art-of-war-by-sun-tzu\/art-of-war\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-29799\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-29799 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Art-of-War-216x300.jpg\" alt=\"Art of War\" width=\"216\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Art-of-War-216x300.jpg 216w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Art-of-War-108x150.jpg 108w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Art-of-War.jpg 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px\" \/><\/a>The Art of War<\/em><\/strong> is a classic read, of course, which is one of the reasons I&#8217;m surprised it&#8217;s taken me this long to get around to it.<\/p>\n<p>I am reading the edition edited and translated by John Minford (Penguin, 2003), which comprises two parts: the original Sun-tzu text; followed by the same text with commentaries from throughout the several thousand year history of the text&#8212;fascinating in and of itself.<\/p>\n<p>I think the original text is really insightful and many of its observations are still relevant today, as is much of the commentary.<\/p>\n<p>For example:<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #000080;\">&#8220;In war,<\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>victory should be<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>swift.<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>If victory is slow,<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>men tire,<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>morale sags.<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>Sieges<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>exhaust strength;<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>Protracted campaigns<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>strain the public treasury&#8230;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><em>&#8230;No nation has ever benefited<br \/>\nfrom a protracted war.&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Upon which the commentator Li Quan observes: <em>&#8220;&#8230;&#8217;War is like fire. Those who cannot bring hostilities to a close burn themselves out.'&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I am beginning to understand why this book is still being read around 2500 years after it is believed to have been written.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Art of War is a classic read, of course, which is one of the reasons I&#8217;m surprised it&#8217;s taken me this long to get around to it. I am reading the edition edited and translated by John Minford (Penguin, 2003), which comprises two parts: the original Sun-tzu text; followed by the same text with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29797"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29802,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29797\/revisions\/29802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}